Distance

Eugene Smith, Tomoko Uemura in her Bath, Minamata, 1972.
Copyright Heirs of W. E. Smith.

Some people believe that between a work of art and its viewer must be a certain psychic distance, a characteristic attitude, lest the work be misunderstood as a mere imitation of reality. In The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, Arthur Danto, discussing this concept, says:

"There are things it would be almost immoral to represent in art, precisely because they are then put at a distance which is exactly wrong from a moral perspective. Tom Stoppard once said that if you see an injustice taking place outside your window, the least useful thing you can do is to write a play about it. I would go further, suggesting that there is something wrong in writing plays about that sort of injustice in which we have an obligation to intervene, since it puts the audience at just the sort of distance the concept of psychic distance means to describe: something like this has been offered as a criticism of the photographs of Diane Arbus."

That's a pregnant and provocative paragraph.

Consider, for example, its implications for documentary photography. (By which I mean photography intended to express concern about or effect change in the subjects it depicts, not merely to record them.) Danto seems to contend that, to the extent documentary photography is understood as art, these intentions cannot be realized, because the relation between a work of art and its viewer inevitably involves a degree of distance that makes responsive action unlikely. On the other hand, if documentary photography is something other than art - in the sense that commercial photography is often something other than art - it can function very well as a call to action - just as commercial photography functions as a call to consume. But it can't be art.

(Jim Johnson (on (Notes on) Politics, Theory & Photography, and also in Art Signal, a new Spanish publication) has recently said some interesting things about the relation between documentary photography and art. Unless I misunderstand, his theses are that there is no meaningful distinction between documentary and art photography, and that art criticism is used invidiously by some documentary photographers, and their allies, to exclude others from the photographic canon. Danto might argue, in contrast, that they should welcome their exclusion in the name of efficacy.)

And what of Diane Arbus? Plainly she was, and considered herself to be, an artist. Is she then to be faulted for failing to "help" her subjects, rather than using them as material for her art? Personally, I don't think so. For one thing, Arbus didn't believe her subjects needed any such help. (She described them instead as psychic "royalty.") And her empathy was unquestionable, even without its notorious confirmation.

On the other hand, what about pictures of homeless people? Would you take the picture of a homeless person? Would you first offer money? How much money? Wouldn't it be better to offer food or shelter? Wouldn't it be better still to get involved in whatever political processes might aim to ensure that everyone has a home? Certainly, homelessness falls within Stoppard's notion of an injustice taking place right outside our windows. Is it immoral to exploit it as art? Or merely pointless?

Maybe the real problem is the concept of psychic distance itself, at least as argued by Danto. Although it is certainly possible to produce a documentary photograph that is not art - so that it might, therefore, effect change - it should not be necessary to do so. Art objectifies felt life. Reaction to injustice is part of felt life. A documentary photograph can simultaneously symbolize, express, and evoke that reaction. When it does, it's not just art, it's politically effective art.